Men are more reluctant to seek help for their problems than women. This difference is attributed to social expectations regarding the male gender role. Today, helpseeking is moving online: instead of traditional peer groups and counselors, people depend on online communities and e-counselors. But online users can appear in guises that differ from their physical sex. An empirical study was conducted in an online game to examine whether users' avatars' gender influences how they seek and receive help. Analysis is based on user-to-user communications and backend data. Results indicate that male avatars are less likely to receive sought-for help than female avatars and more likely to be the recipients of indirectly sought help. The authors conclude that avatar gender influences help seeking independent of physical sex: Men overcome their inhibition for help seeking when using female avatars. Practitioners should ensure that means for indirect help seeking are available in order not to exclude male-pattern help seekers.

Transcripts of conversations are a valuable research resource in social sciences and can be used to make inferences about subjects’ behaviour and intentions. Large-scale communications records can be coded and analysed statistically for generalisable results. Virtual environments are a good place to gather communications records, because they exhibit a wide variety of subject behaviours. However, compared to traditional channels such as forums and chat rooms, virtual environments can be more challenging to obtain data from. In this article, we describe three approaches to collecting user-to-user communications data from virtual environments: requesting back-end records from the operator of the environment, recruiting “data donors” among the users, and setting up researchers’ own “listening posts”. The data collection approaches are evaluated empirically in Uncharted Waters Online, a Japanese massively-multiplayer game. Avatar gender ratio is used as a diagnostic variable to compare the representativeness of the resulting data sets. Both data donors and listening posts yielded data with a gender ratio that corresponds to the back-end records, but the back-end gender ratios differed significantly between two different servers. We conclude that all three approaches can be statistically viable: the choice of method depends more on desired sampling scope and on practical factors such as resources and timetable; but when defining a sampling frame, it cannot be assumed that one server is necessarily representative of the whole platform.

Purpose-Research on prosocial behaviour shows that help-giving differs between the sexes. Gender role theory posits that males specialise in material aid, while females specialize in emotional support. Today, people increasingly help and support each other via online environments. The purpose of this study is to examine whether the genders of avatars used in online interactions influence help-giving behaviour in similar ways as physical sex does in face-to-face situations. Design/methodology/approach-An empirical study was conducted using a unique observational data set from a Japanese massively-multiplayer online game. Instances of help-giving were identified from conversation logs, coded, and analysed statistically to discover differences between male and female avatars and different help types. Findings-Avatar gender is found to influence help-giving in ways that deviate from expected gender roles: female avatars are more likely than males to provide assistance in the form of material support and labour, and no more likely than males to provide emotional support. Female avatars are more likely to give help to male avatars than other females. The results are explained using behavioural confirmation and self-perception theory. Research limitations/implications-Physical sex was not controlled for, but most players were male. The study should be repeated in other environments. Practical implications-The results suggest that designers can prime users towards prosocial behaviours by tuning the available line-up of avatars. Originality/value-The research question and use of observational data are novel. The study is valuable to online educators, companies seeking to reduce customer support costs through peer help, and policymakers dealing with ICTs and societal change.